"Yes," he said in answer to Lance, "it is lonely to come back. There are nettles growing round the hearthstone of the little cabin where I was born, and the last of my kin is laid to rest long ago in Brandon Abbey. Still, the mountains and the woods are the same; it is the same country. I sat to-day for a long time on the stile where I used to sit when I fetched the water from the well for my mother, and I remembered how, the day I was leaving her, she ran after me to the stile to kiss me again, for the last time it proved. Yes, it is lonely to come back, but the old memories are sweet too." He said nothing at all of what we knew, how his wise and generous benefactions had made many a one rejoice at his coming back. After a time Lance told him how we had looked for him at the Brandon Arms with the hope that he would come and stay with us at Rose Hill, but he declined, although very cordially. "I never know when the fit will take me," he said laughing, "to roam about, and I should hopelessly disorganize your hours and your servants' ways. Besides, my old school-fellow, Mary Fahy, would take it as a slight upon her place if I were to desert her. Let me instead come in of evenings to smoke a pipe when I like,--may I? May I, Mrs. MacNeill?" "Indeed you may," said I. Just then the boys came in, full of repressed excitement. They shook hands with Mr. Desmond, and then retired into a distant corner, where they sat and glowered at their great man, in whose hands, although he did not yet know it, their fate lay. But he seemed almost as much interested in them as they were in him. His keen eyes followed them into their obscurity. "Those great fellows," he said to Aline, "they were little lads when I was here before. Yet they were ready to follow me into the wilderness." For a minute the silence was electrical. Then one or other of the boys broke silence. "We are ready to follow you now." Mr. Desmond stood up slowly, revealing his great height. "What, still of the same mind?" he said. "Come over here till I look at you." The boys came out of their corner and stood before him side by side, their eyes bright with excitement. The thing had come about much sooner than we expected, and as I turned to look at Aline I saw that her head was drooping, and her fingers plucked nervously at the lace of her gown. Mr. Desmond looked at the boys a minute or two, and they looked back at him. "Yes," he said, "I remember. You wanted to come with me, and I said that I had room for men, and that when you were men, if you were still of the same mind, I would find room for you." "And now we are men," said Hugh, "and we are still of the same mind." "We have been learning smith-work, and mason-work, and carpentry, and other things that we thought might be useful to us when you had found room for us," said Donald, "and we are ready to go." "What, both?" said Mr. Desmond, and then he turned to Aline. "You would trust them to me, Miss Brandon?"